As video viewing has proliferated on the World Wide Web, more and more websites require flexible encoding solutions. Videos often need to be encoded at multiple resolutions and multiple bitrates. In addition, many websites support multiple encoded formats. The websites obtain original source content in many video formats and often acquire their new content at random, unpredictable times. Thus, on one day, a website may receive one hundred new videos to host and, on a different day, ten thousand. Video content often has timely relevance (i.e., strong incentives exist to make new content available quickly, often the same day, to potential viewers). Traditionally, video encoding has been effected by the content provider's owning a bank of encoders within its own facility. Since each encoder can process only a fixed amount of video content in a given day and given the timeliness factor, the content provider must provision its system for peak use. This necessitates the creation of a large bank of encoders that sit idle most of the time. Further, the creation of the bank of encoders requires a significant up-front capital expenditure, later amortized over long periods of usage.